Inside My Head (Silent Moment Series: Book 6)

Chapter 32

 His voice cracked with desperation, "If you don't, I'll be condemned to an eternity of darkness — a prisoner within a mind-drive, trapped within your unconscious mind, all inside this confined, unyielding space. It's a fate worse than any other, an endless void where time and hope cease to exist."

He hovered over me, his words a rapid-fire plea. "You must resist, Kegan. Don't let this seizure take you. I can't be locked away forever, a consciousness entombed in silence and solitude. We must escape this, both for you and for me. Fight through it, please!"

His urgency was palpable, a stark contrast to my body's uncontrollable betrayal. The stakes were higher than ever — it was a battle not just for my own wellbeing, but for his very existence.

As my eyes fluttered open, reality shifted, plunging me back into the ethereal realm of the mindspace. There I was, confined once again in my cell, a space hauntingly familiar yet eerily different. The stark change that caught my eye was a new drawing — a detailed depiction of Bellamy in that cave, masterfully etched onto the wall, replacing the spot where Raven's image had lingered post-EMP. The blaring of a siren pierced the air, a harrowing reminder of our dire situation: we were on the brink of death. With a surge of urgency, I leaped off the bed and hurried out of the cell.

"Joseph?" My voice echoed in the empty space, a mix of hope and trepidation.

His response was chilling, "You don't want to see me. Witness this instead!" And with those final words, the man ended his own life right before my eyes. The gunshot was a thunderous crack in the silent mindspace. As his body collapsed to the ground, it underwent a bizarre metamorphosis, morphing into a book — an eerie, symbolic transformation that left me in a state of shock and disbelief.

The surrealism of the scene was overwhelming. The mindspace, with its own rules and logic, had thrown me into a narrative far beyond the ordinary, where the boundaries of reality and imagination blurred indistinguishably.

"What the hell is going on?" I muttered to myself, my voice barely above a whisper, echoing the chaos swirling in my mind. The presence of Joseph's memory in our shared mindspace was a perplexing enigma, a puzzle piece that didn't seem to fit.

With a mixture of curiosity and apprehension, I reached down to pick up the book that had once been Joseph. Its cover felt unnaturally cold to the touch, almost as if it contained remnants of the life it had transformed from. Clutching it tightly, I began to navigate through the labyrinthine hallway. The corridor seemed to stretch endlessly, lined with towering stacks of books that cast long, foreboding shadows in the dim light. Each book appeared to be a repository of memories, thoughts, or perhaps even souls, making the air heavy with an unspeakable gravity. As I walked, a figure caught my eye — a silhouette moving with an eerie purpose down the hallway. It was him. He was here, in the mindspace, his presence both unsettling and impossible to ignore. The sight of him walking in this surreal library of memories sent a shiver down my spine. The atmosphere was thick with mystery and unspoken secrets, each step I took bringing me closer to the unknown. What was this place? A collective consciousness? A graveyard of memories? The questions multiplied, each one adding weight to the surreal, dreamlike quality of my surroundings.

"Hey, why are your memories infiltrating my side of the wall?" I demanded, my voice laced with a mix of confusion and accusation.

"You know exactly why. I warned you to give me control. Now, we're past the point of no return," he retorted, his tone edged with a mix of frustration and resignation.

"How much time do we have left?" I asked, urgency creeping into my voice.

"Not much," he snapped back, just as the entire space started to rumble ominously, as if echoing his words.